1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to brass-wind mouthpieces, and in particular brass-wind mouthpieces configured for improved performance and endurance.
2. Description of the Related Art
A brass-wind mouthpiece is formed as a cup with a convex rim. A musician places the rim against his lips to play a brass-wind instrument. The rim is therefore the most important interface between instrument and musician.
In greater detail, the cup has the rim at its proximate end and a throat at its distal end. The cup also includes a receptacle for a hollow shank adapted to connect the throat to a mouthpiece-receiver of a brass-wind instrument. The shank has a tubular backbore that conveys air between the cup and the instrument, through a throat in the base of the cup. A musician applies his lips to the mouthpiece rim and blows air into the instrument through the throat and the backbore in the shank. This act causes the musician's upper and lower lips to vibrate, setting up a standing sound wave in the instrument and producing the characteristic sound of the instrument being played.
The rim has a circumferential inside edge, a circumferential outside edge and a surface contour extending between the inside edge and the outside edge.
The contour has a superior abutment adapted to abut a musician's upper lip, an inferior abutment adapted to abut the musician's lower lip, and lateral shoulders adapted to face the corners of the musician's mouth where his upper lip and lower lip meet. The contour also has an impression, which is the path of apex points on the contour around the circumference of the rim, and a bite, which is the portion of the contour between the impression and the inside edge
The contour of the rim may be rounded or relatively flat. The contour is generally of uniform radius from the inside edge to outside edge of the rim. The impression of the rim is usually close to its center, but is sometimes biased very slightly to the inside or outside edge over the entire circumference of the rim. The contour of the inside portion of the rim—the bite—may be somewhat sharper than the contour of the outside portion of the rim, but is generally uniform throughout the circumference of the rim.
The musician manipulates the pitch of the note being produced by the instrument, in part by movements of his lips. These movements are a combination of changing the tension in the vibrating lips, puckering, rolling the lips in or out, compressing the upper and lower lips together, and varying mouthpiece pressure against the lips. The net result is a change in the frequency of lip vibrations, resulting in a change of the sounded note. The lips must also be periodically stretched open at their corners and then quickly returned to their original playing position in order to take breath while playing a musical passage.
Conventional mouthpiece rim contours impose significant physical and physiological limitations on the musician, leading to problems of decreased lip mobility, lip and face muscle fatigue, lip swelling, and impaired blood and oxygen supply to the lip tissues inside the mouthpiece. These problems translate into impaired range, lack of endurance and an impaired ability to smoothly move between notes (flexibility). Conventional rims also make it difficult to achieve satisfactory replacement of the lips in their original position after taking a breath.
The present invention addresses these problems.